Chapter Text
Iruma pulled his bow taut as he stared down the monstrous lizard demon before him. Adorned in the clothing of a shrine priestess, he stood his ground as reiki gathered into the shaft of his arrow, glowing pink, before releasing it straight into the reptile demon's chest. It screeched loudly while cursing as the purifying reiki ate it from the inside out, until it finally collapsed upon itself.
Iruma took in a deep breath before exhaling in relief. It had been the third demon this week that had intruded upon their tiny village's boarders, and he still had a few wrapped injuries from the boar demon that had tried to gorge him on its tusks two suns ago.
"Miko-sama." An elderly woman shuffled beside him as some of the young men came to collect and make use of the demon's remains.
Iruma smiled kindly, his long blue hair tied low in a more traditional style befitting his supposed gender and station. He pitched his voice as his disposition leaned toward a slight frame that thankfully fooled the villagers into believing he was the female sacrifice his parents had lied for him to be. "Yes, Obaa-sama?"
The elderly woman hummed while leaning against her walking cane, her voice worn and graveled with age. "It won't be long now, with how frequent the attacks have become over the past lunar cycle."
Iruma's heart sped up in fear as he kept his features as friendly, welcoming, and innocent as usual. "You think so?"
The old woman huffed before stating gravely, "Aye, I've witnessed two brides to 've been taken after such similar increases in attacks." She shrugged with apathy as she began to walk back towards the village while leaning heavily with uneven steps on her wooden cane. "Ye'd best prepare yerself. C'nt be more than the moon's waning into pitch, now."
Iruma swallowed thickly against the tightening of his throat before sedately following after. He had until the New Moon.
Iruma had played the role of the chosen sacrificial bride for as long as he could remember.
"Hunny, isn't it wonderful that Irumi-chan was chosen as the sacrifice? We get the first of the harvest, and because she's our only daughter and heir, we don't even have to work!"
Iruma's grip unconsciously tightened upon his bow before relaxing with a practiced sigh. His entire life had been leading up to this moment- every sunrise, to the eventual shifting of the moon. At the end of it all, as he was made to participate in each yearly ceremony, each demon hunt, at every passing season-
Someday, during his fifteenth year, the ayakashi that had made a pact of protection with his village would come to collect their sacrifice, and with it, his village would continue to be blessed with prosperity and protection for generations.
His life was a token sacrifice for the comfort of the many. As such, he was granted special powers to protect him from both demon and human alike, as well as the ability to heal sickness and the wounds of others. He could purify evil, was agile, and he never fell sick.
Iruma wondered, idly, as he separated from the rest of the villagers and made the lonely treck up the tiny shrine's steps to where he lived alone, how angry the ones who he'd been presented to as a girl when he'd been a child would feel about the human's betrayal towards their pact?
'Irumi' was to have been given every comfort during what little life she would live along with her fellow humans. More than simply the absolute basics for survival than she had been, certainly, she was to have been loved most of all.
Yet, she was made to live a Spartan lifestyle of chastity and constant purification, where no red blooded meat was to ever touch her lips. Winters were miserable thanks to the lack of fat on her bones, and no furs of dead animals were spared for her tiny one roomed shrine she called home. She repaired what drafts she could, and kept the hearth tended so as to not freeze to death in winter.
He sighed softly as he released his long hair from it's low ponytail while collecting the needed necessities, glancing at the blood and tears upon his miko garments, before heading out to find a stream far enough away to not be seen by another soul.
When he was a child, his parents had made him promise no one would learn of his true gender, lest the entire village be slaughtered in revenge.
Iruma didn't much like the idea of being killed because of his parent's greed, let alone causing the deaths of everyone else, so he obeyed.
(Admittedly, now that he was older, he wondered why they felt so confident that he and the villagers wouldn't be slaughtered after he was taken away and discovered, anyhow-
He always found reason to drop such thoughts after that.)
Iruma found his usual purification pool and began to repair and clean his miko garments while dressed in a simple white under kimono.
By the time he finished and was ready to begin his daily cleansing ritual, the sky was turning gold and red with the setting of the sun. He sighed softly to himself as he forced himself to enter the still-cold waters, as spring this year had tended towards chill for longer than hoped. He raised his face towards the warm toned sky and stared up at the final sliver of moon that had made its ascent early.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow would be the day he was to be taken away and wed.